lloughbys, a decayed race,
and from such strong decay what blossom less gorgeous should spring?

October now. All the world swings at the top of its beauty; and those
hills where we shall live, what robes of color fold them! Tawny filemot
gilding the valleys, each seam and rut a scroll or arabesque, and all
the year pouring out her heart's blood to flush the maples, the great
impurpled granites warm with the sunshine they have drunk all summer! So
I am to be married to-day, at noon. I like it best so; it is my hour.
There is my veil, that regal Venice point. Fling it round you. No, you
would look like a ghost in one,--Lu like a corpse. Dear me! That's the
second time I've rung for Carmine. I dare say the hussy is trying on my
gown. You think it strange I don't delay? Why, child, why tempt
Providence? Once mine, always mine. He might wake up. No, no, I couldn't
have meant that! It is not possible that I have merely led him into a
region of richer dyes, lapped him in this vision of color, kindled his
heart to such a flame, that it may light him towards further effort. Can
you believe that he will slip from me and return to one in better
harmony with him? Is any one? Will he ever find himself with that love
lost, this love exhausted, only his art left him? Never! _I_ am his
crown. See me! how singularly, gloriously beautiful! For him only! all
for him! I love him! I cannot, I will not lose him! I defy all! My
heart's proud pulse assures me! I defy Fate! Hush! One,--two,--twelve
o'clock. Carmine!

III.

_Astra castra, numen lumen._

The click of her needles and the soft singing of the night-lamp are the
only sounds breaking the stillness, the awful stillness, of this room.
How the wind blows without! it must be whirling white gusty drifts
through the split hills. If I were as free! Whistling round the gray
gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint, hoarse moans down the
chimneys! A wild, sad gale! There is a lull, a long breathless lull,
before it soughs up again. Oh, it is like a pain! Pain! Why do I think
the word? Must I suffer any more? Am I crazed with opiates? or am I
dying? They are in that drawer,--laudanum, morphine, hyoscyamus, and all
the drowsy sirups,--little drops, but soaring like a fog, and wrapping
the whole world in a dull ache, with no salient sting to catch a groan
on. They are so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why
not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark room; I